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hated his unwelcome visitor; and, before they parted, he gave him a check for an hundred pounds, that being the sum Hopkins said his wife required to furnish a better house, and let off lodgings. So they separated; the squire having agreed to allow Hopkins ten pounds a-month, on condition that he was to remain the undisturbed and undisputed proprietor of Sutton-cum-Bottesford. But we must now return Godfrey Malvern.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY NEW

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THE

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
LIBRA

CHAPTER XXVI.

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HOW GODFREY MALVERN, AFTER MANY TRIALS, AT LAST FOUND A PUBLISHER, AND AGREED TO WRITE A WORK-A LONG AND TEDIOUS, BUT TRUE CHAPTER.

GODFREY MALVERN was by this time so far reduced in circumstances, that he knew not where to obtain a sovereign in the wide world; and Emma's resources were also exhausted, for she had sold numberless things which her husband never knew she possessed, until she only just left herself such a change of articles as were absolutely necessary. Emma, however, possessed that happy temperament, which is never altogether disheartened; for, dark and gloomy as the surrounding realities were, still she could in fancy see far beyond all difficulties, into a land of golden promises, lighted only by hope. She seldom went out without believing that some romantic adventure would befal her; that she should pick up a large sum of money which somebody or other had dropped, and which would relieve them from all present privations. But, alas! the fairy which made such sunshine about her innocent heart, gambolled not in her path;' she found impediments enow in her walks, without stumbling over a purse of gold. She bore up against all difficulties much better than her husband, although she had been nursed in the 'downy lap of luxury,' and shed the same sweet smile over thei. homely board, which she had diffused around her father's sumptuous table in the hall of Sutton-cum-Bottesford: true, her eye had lost something of its former brilliancy, but the light which lurked therein, though now less piercing, was the soft and chastened glance of woman's deeply-tried love. Her gay and happy light-heartedness many a time chased away the furrows from Godfrey's thoughtful

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brow, when he would, if left alone, have sat brooding over his trials in silence, until he had become the very image of despair.

One day, while they were walking out together, a carriage drew up close beside the pavement, which they were about to cross; and Emma instantly called her husband's attention to the benevolent-looking old gentleman who occupied it, as she said, "I am sure, Godfrey, if we were to tell that nice-looking old gentleman who we are, he would lend us an hundred pounds or two, until your book was published. I never saw so mild and charitable a countenance in my life. Don't you think he would, now? I have read of such things being

done."

"They very often are, my dear, in print," answered Godfrey; "and you may be enabled to guess as to what would be the result of your application, by observing that poor woman, with her two children. See! she has reached the carriage." Emma watched the poor creature approach, and saw the charitable-looking old gentleman shake his head, then draw up the window, and throw himself back in his seat. She sighed, took a penny out of her little silk-bag, gave it the woman, heard her bless her sweet face, and they passed on, while the benevolent old gentleman drove up to a fruiterer's, and purchased half a dozen pine-apples, at a sovereign each; for he was about to give a splendid dinner on the morrow, and had not a sixpence to spare for the poor woman or her children. No! he paid his poor-rates, and that was enough for

HE WAS COMPELLED.

"You see, my love," said Godfrey, taking hold of her hand as he spoke, while she leant more heavily on his arm, "that all are not so generous as they appear to be. Many a man would pay down his ten pounds towards the erection of a monument to perpetuate the memory of some one, who, when living, he would not have given a shilling to, if it would have saved him from perishing.-Vanity gets more contributors than Charity; not that it lessens the good which is done in the end; but, as Gregory Gruff used to say, if any leading person could make it fashionable to erect marble monuments to murderers, it would be done, providing some respectable churchman would countenance the humbug, and persuade the people that they were reared up as warnings to others. Such virtuous endurance as yours, my dear Emma, would not be enough to draw forth the sympathies of these people; but were I, your loving husband, to sally out, shoot a man, and take his purse on the highway, and very deservedly bring myself to the gallows, I have no doubt but that you

might live like a lady, for years, by only selling locks of my hair, and dealing out my autograph."

It was by such trifling remarks as these, that Godfrey endeavoured to draw out the mind of his beautiful wife, and give her broader and 'correcter' views of the world; and although she sometimes placed her hand playfully over his mouth, and bade him not preach such grave sermons, yet she treasured up and pondered over what he had said, for a great change had already taken place in Godfrey Malvern the breathing world was now his book; he had begun to study the heart of man. Those who had seen him the petted poet of the borough of Buttervote, the rhyming schoolmaster of Sutton-cumBottesford, would scarcely have recognized him now. The face was

the same a shade more thoughtful; but the manner of the man was altered; he looked firmer, more resolved, more daring! he stood more erect; there was a kind of ‘knock-me-down' look in his countenance, which would make even a ruffian quail, and more than once take the measure of his man, before he dared to insult him. Disappointment had done this; it had neither lowered his pride, nor lessened his ambition; it had only made him sterner, harder, more manly, more thoughtful and reserved, and better able to bear the heavy blows which are aimed at the iron breasts of those who come into the world as if only to see how hard their dear brothers and sisters can strike. We have said, that Emma bore with difficulties better than her husband, she did; but he endured the greater weight: her, they pained only for the moment-him, they preyed and fed upon. An obstacle removed, money in her purse, their table well furnished, and her husband smiling upon her, and she thought not of the future; while he looked far beyond all this; and although his love for her often made him veil his frown with smiles, and appear happy when he really was very sad; yet he did it, because it grieved him to cause her a moment's pain: though the worm was feeding on his heart, he endured the pangs it inflicted, without complaining; she had but to speak, and he remembered her, and looked no longer sad.

But in the still midnight, when he sat alone with his head resting on his hand, when his mind wandered from the half-written page, it was then that he thought and felt the most acutely. "There are an hundred other paths in the world," he would argue to himself, "by which I might have secured comfort, if not affluence. There is not a Tompkins, a Smith, or a Jenkinson, who is not happier than I am. They hurry off, and are at their appointed places in the city, by

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nine or ten in the morning, and are home again by four or five in the afternoon, and their cares are ended. The future troubles them not; they have no thought for the morrow; the present is provided for. Why am I not like these? Oh, God! why am I different? the cold grave I can have no selfish design; no mercenary wish, that future generations can gratify. Why then should I wish to be remembered after death, to distinguish myself from those who live so happily and comfortably on earth ?-who are free from those pangs and heartaches which I seek, and bring down upon myself! I know not—I cannot know. Whether the fairies dance upon the grass that they may drive the sweeter flowers underground, and keep to themselves an eternal summer below, leaving the present day in the luxury of rank vegetation, to stand and wonder why a barren circle could exist amid so much plenty, I know not!—the mark is there,-barren! barren! barren! Is it an idle life, to sit brooding day after day, and night after night?—to work hour for hour with the money-getting world until it can keep no longer awake, and then to work on alone, even through many of the hours which that drowsy world sleeps ?— No! it is the want of fellowship between earth and Heaven!-the spiritual and the sensual have no affinity."

This was the savage philosophy of disappointment-the damnable dream unrealized-the golden vision ungrasped; the floating atoms of the unsubstantial sunbeam had yet to come-the dusty splendour' to be clutched. Want had come without even fame to sweeten it.Morning came, ushered in by rain, and breakfast; and in place of Apollo, ankle-deep in lilies of the vale, with wings of sunlight,' in came the fat, gin-drinking, brutal landlady, for her rent. She had no pro

logue to deliver, but simply threw open the door, without even so much as knocking; and thrusting in her forbidding countenance, said, "I've come for my rent! it's been due these two days!"

Emma looked at her husband, and was afraid to speak; it was something new to her to be "bullied" for money. Godfrey saw at a glance that the woman was a blackguard; it was branded upon her brow, although he had never examined her countenance so narrowly before; and the abrupt and impudent manner in which she spoke, caused the hot blood to mount his cheek in an instant, as he said, “I would thank you not to enter my apartments in this abrupt manner, again! Your rent is not due until next Wednesday; for it is not my pleasure any longer to pay a week in advance, as I have done."

"Then it's my pleasure that you leave on Wednesday week!" said

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